It came on pretty suddenly. It sounded great...then, a big clash of swords and the thing turned into a mess. It was mostly high pitched harshness. At the time we were worried about it being the speakers breaking up at high volumes, but then I looked up the specs on his receiver and saw it was only 80W per channel and he is using all 7 channels.
We originally got the components thinking that he would be using a VP150, but when Axiom came out with the VP180 we had to have it. So, we ordered one and Axiom was nice enough to take back the VP150.
On a side note, we also ordered a EP800 to replace the SVS sub we had just got. The SVS turned out to be a little too tall and the EP800 on its side was quite compact (relatively at least). The EP800 arrived and it was busted. The drivers seemed to be fighting each other and there was a massive hum from it. It put out very little bass. We went back to the SVS and made it work.
I bet that poor receiver was running really hot (temperature wise) as well. Surprised your receiver has never shut down. I would be careful running that receiver at reference levels in that large room like that again and monitor the temps. That distortion sounds nasty.
